The Amelia Earhart Story
The Amelia Earhart Story is the fifth episode of Season 5 of ''BoJack Horseman'', ''and the 53rd episode overall. It premiered with the rest of Season 5 on September 14, 2018. Synopsis Painful memories come rushing back when Princess Carolyn visits her hometown and meets a pregnant teen. A stunt goes awry on the ''Philbert set. Plot The episode opens with a flashback to Princess Carolyn as a child, living above the garage of a wealthy family with her mom and siblings in Eden, North Carolina. Princess Carolyn is watching her favorite movie, and the only VHS tape they have, The Amelia Earhart Story, which she knows all the words by heart. Her mother is a little annoyed over how much she watches it. In the movie, Amelia Earhart is told she's meant for greater things and is encouraged to leave her home so that she can fly into the sunset. In the present Princess Carolyn sits in front of the house and garage, both of which are depleted and long abandoned, in her car. She gets a call from BoJack, who complains about having to learn five pages of dialogue, and about how everyone on set has their attention on Mr. Peanutbutter. He goes on to say that they're supposed to like him/Philbert because he's the star. Princess Carolyn tells BoJack, that she'll be back tomorrow, and that she's just taking care of some family stuff. Princess Carolyn meets with a pregnant teenager, Sadie, to talk about her baby at the restaurant Phuzzy's. While they talk, Princess Carolyn gets a call from Diane who complains about Flip wanting her to just keep her mouth shut. She tells Princess Carolyn about her ideas for the show. Princess Carolyn tells Diane to make Flip think that it was his idea. Sadie says that she's been mostly meeting with couples but that she's glad she found someone from Eden. She leaves to go to the restroom, and Princess Carolyn gets another phone call from Mr. Peanutbutter. He asks her if he should improvise the script Flip is writing, and Princess Carolyn tells him no, but he thinks she is saying yes. Sadie returns but tells Princess Carolyn that she has to leave to go set up her booth, at the flea market. Princess Carolyn tells Sadie to call her if she has any more questions. After Sadie leaves, Princess Carolyn watches one of the diner employees washing the floors. This transitions into a flashback of a teenage Princess Carolyn begrudgingly cleaning the floors. Cooper Thomas Rogers Wallace, Jr., the family's eighteen-year-old son, tells her he knows she's doing this because her mom is drunk again, although Princess Carolyn tries to lie and say she's learning on her own will so she can be a great maid too. Cooper asks her why she doesn't just leave, or at least move to Raleigh with her dad. Princess Carolyn explains all of her siblings left, and she doesn't want to leave her mom alone. She helps Cooper realize that he needs to ask his football coach if he can be the first-string quarterback. Princess Carolyn chases after Sadie. She tells Sadie, that they should spend more time together, because this baby means a lot to her. Her phone rings again and she gets a call from Todd. Todd complains about how the show is over budget and that his boss is starting to ask questions. Princess Carolyn hangs up, but Sadie says that she doesn't want her or her baby to get in the way of her career. Princess Carolyn promises to be at the flea market the next day and has Stuart change her flight to Wednesday. Teen Princess Carolyn is cleaning the living room again, and Cooper comes in and announces he's the first string quarterback. Princess Carolyn hugs him in excitement, and the two end up making out. Later at night, she sneaks back into her house, where her mom is passed out drunk on the couch. Her mom wakes up and drunkenly tells her daughter to not get her hopes up with life, because "life is like a roulette game, and it all depends if the little white ball lands on your number and the problem is that most people don't realize they have unlucky numbers." She then chastises Princess Carolyn for having college pamphlets for schools in California and for wanting to leave her, and questions how she'd even pay for college. Princess Carolyn argues back she'd get a job or paid internship—making her mother mock her even more. She tells Princess Carolyn that the difference between the two of them is that she knows her place. In the present, Princess Carolyn goes to the flea market. BoJack calls her and complains that Mr. Peanutbutter does his own stunts, so now he has to do his own stunts—but he doesn't want to anymore. He asks Princess Carolyn to hire back the stunt double that he fired. Princess Carolyn tells him that she'll take care of it. She arrives at Sadie's booth, Made-y by Sadie, and helps her sell her bedazzled clothes. Sadie tells her a lot of people are browsing, but no one is really buying anything. Princess Carolyn then shows her a technique of manipulating people into buying something. She sees a male customer trying on a bedazzled jacket, and tells him he can't buy the jacket because she was going to buy it. The man then decides to purchase the jacket for five dollars. Princess Carolyn then tells Sadie, you can sell people anything, as long as they believe they are not being sold to. Sadie points out that is pretty manipulative. Princess Carolyn buys Sadie a chair from a neighboring booth, and Sadie sits down because her back hurts, she tells Princess Carolyn that she wouldn't want to be pregnant. Back in her teen years, Princess Carolyn, to her utter dismay, finds out she's pregnant. While she laments how her life is over, her mother is ecstatic that Cooper is stuck with her now and can support them forever. Princess Carolyn starts crying, but her mother calms her down. She then gives Princess Carolyn her necklace, saying it came from the old country and she got it from her mom when she first got pregnant. She tells her daughter that when she looks at the necklace to remember she comes from a strong line of women who can take a licking and keep on ticking. Princess Carolyn smiles at this, and her mother tells her to not blow their chance. In the present, Princess Carolyn sadly looks at her necklace. Sadie asks Princess Carolyn if she wants to meet her family at a church potluck. Princess Carolyn says sure and lies about being religious. Later, at the potluck, Sadie points out her family to Princess Carolyn. Princess Carolyn comments on the stars in the sky, saying they're not like this in L.A. Another flashback shows Princess Carolyn being taken by Cooper to meet with his father, Cooper Thomas Wallace, Sr. He tells her that she'll marry Cooper band plans her life out for her, filled with wealth and stability, as long as people need answering machine tapes. However, these things are someone else's dream-not really what she wants for herself. Todd calls Princess Carolyn and tells her that there has been an accident on set. BoJack fell off a building and landed on a car, and got seriously injured. Princess Carolyn is stressed by this and by Todd telling her she's behind schedule and over budget. She assures Todd she'll get BoJack a specialist to drug him up so he feels OK to shoot later in the week. Just then, Sadie's boyfriend and the father of her baby, Strib shows up on his motorcycle and demands she give him another chance, telling her "he loves her o''r whatever''," and asks her to keep the baby. Princess Carolyn tries to get Sadie's attention but isn't able to in the midst of the chaos Sadie's family telling her what she should say. It cuts to teen Princess Carolyn distraught that she had a miscarriage, the thing that will continue to plague her later in life as well, and her mother blaming her for ruining their plan. Princess Carolyn starts sobbing as she apologizes, and her mother comforts her, saying they just have unlucky numbers. Princess Carolyn thinks Cooper might still want to marry her, but her mother assures her he'll want to marry some heiress, but she's free now-seeing that life has chosen a path for her. Princess Carolyn is still distressed so her mom shows her the acceptance letter to UCLA that she received in the mail. Princess Carolyn is at Phuzzy's when Diane calls her. Diane feels guilty because it was her idea for the stunt, but Princess Carolyn convinces her that it was Flip's idea. Sadie arrives at Phuzzy's and Princess Carolyn tries to convince her to not believe what Strib is saying. They get into an argument because Sadie thinks that Princess Carolyn is manipulative, and thinks that Sadie's stupid. Also, she's treating their time together like another sale's pitch which doesn't work for adopting a child. Princess Carolyn tries to explain herself saying she cares about her baby more than anything, but Sadie retorts back she thinks she's better than her because she left and is a fancy show business person—and is just upset she can't always "bullshit her way into getting what she wants." Princess Carolyn desperately pleads to Sadie that she wants to give her baby a better life, which Sadie replies "Better than what? Better than a sky full of stars?" Princess Carolyn accepts, but tells Sadie to do what she wants with the baby and to make her own decision, not anyone else. Princess Carolyn returns to her depleted old home. She gets a call from the adoption agency and learns that Sadie wants to keep looking elsewhere for adoptive parents for her baby. Princess Carolyn is at the airport when she gets a call from BoJack. She tells him that she's on her way home and that she'll check on him. BoJack is happy because the accident made him everyone's favorite guy again, and the drugs they gave him worked wonders. In another flashback, Princess Carolyn is at the airport with her mom as she is about to leave for college. At the last minute, her mom tries to convince her to stay for another year, saying "Can you do this '''one' thing for me''?" This is ironic, considering Princess Carolyn was always the one to pick up her mother's slack, her whole life. Princess Carolyn says she can't, which devastates her mother, and then she boards the plane to Los Angeles. The episode ends with the plane flying into the sunset, mirroring the scene from the Amelia Earhart Story ''shown earlier.'' Cast Trivia * This episode reveals how Princess Carolyn got her necklace from her mother, and that her first miscarriage was when she was eighteen. *It is revealed Princess Carolyn grew up in Eden, North Carolina. **It is also revealed she went to UCLA, and it's implied she became an intern for Marv at Vigor to pay for it. *Princess Carolyn spoke with a Southern accent in her childhood and teen years. **It's likely she lost it after moving to California. *This is the first appearance of Princess Carolyn's mother, Cutie Cutie Cupcake. **She is played by David Sedaris, Amy Sedaris's brother. *This is the first time we see some of Princess Carolyn's siblings. **It's learned one of them was named Boots, and one of her sisters bore a striking resemblance to her fictional great great great granddaughter Ruthie *This is the first time we see Princess Carolyn as a child/ teenager. *This is the first appearance and naming of the Wallace family, who Princess Carolyn's mother worked as a maid for. *Amy Sedaris, who voices Princess Carolyn, and Jamie Pressly, who voices Sadie, both came from North Carolina. *BoJack hurts his back on the set of Philbert, and he is given opioids for the pain. **The rest of the season sees him become addicted to them. *At the flea market, a possum can be seen folding t-shirts with words printed on them that appear on screen so briefly, they can't be read without pausing the episode. The shirts read: **''"I shirt you not"'' **''"Stop pausing and just watch the show"'' *A banner at one of the flea market booths reads "Stuff I stole to make money to buy heroin" *The vinyl records at the flea market: "LION ADAMS", "WOODCHUCK BROWN", "THE MONITORS", "STINKY FRIEDMAN", "SQUIRREL NUT ZIPPERS" and "Just Because I'm A Sheep by DOLLY PARTON". *Signage at the flea market: "KETTLE CORN Now made in a real kettle". *BoJack mentions Young Sheldon, Kerri Strug and Sartre. Intro Differences * Mr. Peanutbutter and Diane appear on the Philbert set. Category:Episodes Category:Season 5